Life on März

 Life on März is, of course, a Märzen. This one comes from Kingston and its Stone City Ales. It is a 5.3% amber lager that comes in 500mL bottles. The beer is beautifully clear and it pours with a short-lived layer of creamy foam.

LoM has a malty, slightly toasty aroma accented with a nod to sweetness. The beer has a sweet to bitter, malty to bitter progression. It’s flavour touches on roasted malt, grainy, floral hops, and some metallic elements.

I don’t see a lot of märzens (märzi?) in my perusal of Ontario’s brewery offerings, but I pretty much always buy some of this fall seasonal treat when I do. And I’m definitely glad to have picked up a couple of bottles of LoM—it’s a tasty take on the classic harvest lager. It’s tall on crisp, floral bitterness and relatively short on sweetness, which works for me.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Black is Beautiful--Stone City Ales

 Stone City Ales’ version of Black is Beautiful is a 10% imperial stout that raises money for the Black Luck Collective. This beer, brewed in Kingston, is a take on the original recipe from San Antonio, Texas’ Weathered Souls Brewing Co.

Sold in 500mL bottles, Stone City’s BiB is an extremely dark, almost black ale. It pours with a thin layer of tan head. It has dark chocolate and café mocha aromatics, supplemented with more than a whiff of booziness. The flavour is sweet and malty, with cocoa and coffee elements. In addition, there is a sticky molasses vibe and a bit of espresso bitterness to punctuate the finish. The beer has a thick, almost syrupy mouthfeel.

Another impressive rendition of the BiB formula, Stone City’s take is sweet and ferociously strong. I’d have liked a bit more balance (less sweetness and more bitterness), but that’s about all I have to whinge about.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Ships in the Night Oatmeal Stout

 At 5.6%, Ships in the Night Oatmeal Stout has a bit of ballast, but at just 25 IBUs, it’s still quite smooth. The beer comes from Kingston, Ontario’s Stone City Ales. It’s sold in 500mL bottles.

SitN is a handsome dark ale—almost black, but with deep amber highlights. The beer has a malty, molasses aroma and a flavour that walks a similar path, accented with brown sugar. The back end has some bitterness, coffee-style, but the maltiness persists throughout.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Continuum NEIPA

 Continuum NEIPA is a hella juicy and strong ale—one that I’d class as a hazy double IPA. It’s an 8% ale brewed in Kingston, Ontario by Stone City Ales. It’s made with Citra, Enigma, Galaxy, and Mosaic hops and it comes in 500mL bottles.

The beer is dull orange in colour and it pours with a fluffy white cloud. Continuum has sweet tropical fruit aromatics, supplemented with a whiff of bitter citrus. The flavour has tropical leanings, a faint coconut element, and a fairly bitter, grapefruit-driven back end. The beer doesn’t taste nearly as strong as its 8% pedigree, but you can certainly detect some heat.

Continuum is another enjoyable entry from Stone City—it’s a punchy hazer with a balanced flavour. Not a lot to complain about.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Bajus Brown Ale

 Brown ale! Criminally under-represented in Ontario’s brewing scene. I was fired up when I saw that Stone City Ales offered a brown—the 5.5% Bajus Brown Ale. It comes in stark 500mL bottles, from which emerges a handsome amber liquid. Through its durable, creamy head comes a malty aroma highlighted with bready and caramel-tinged notes. The flavour is cozy and malt-driven. It’s toasty and mellow at the outset, with brown sugar and caramel, and it gives way to a mild metallic bitterness.

Mild-mannered, but with some depth, Bajus is a solid little brown ale. It has excellent strength, too. I’d have liked a bit more of an explosive hop finish, but that’s about it for critiques.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Uncharted India Pale

Birthed in stately Kingston, Ontario, Uncharted India Pale is the flagship beer of Stone City Ales. It’s a no nonsense 7% brew sold in 500mL bottles with a sea monster on the label. The beer is hazy. It has a dull, orange-gold appearance and it pours with a substantial cloud of white foam.

This IPA has a sweet and dank aroma—there are tropical and citrus notes, as well as a hit of resin. The flavour has a sweet to bitter movement, with mango and pineapple kicking things off, transitioning into a hempy bitterness that, while still sweet, does stretch its legs a bit to reveal the full 70 IBUs mentioned on the label.

This is a dandy IPA from a brewery that I’m excited to learn more about in the coming days. I’ve got very little to complain about and much to be impressed by. Great strength, agreeable flavour, positive depth. Even a cool label. Win.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

Stone City Run

 

Recently, I saw on the ol' Twitter that Kingston's Stone City Ales was doing a delivery run into Toronto. You better believe I jumped at the chance. So stay tuned to the Bitter World over the next few for my thoughts on a sextet of Stone City's offerings.

Prost! Dunkelweizen

Prost! Dunkelweizen is a dark wheat beer from the team at Toronto’s Muddy York Brewing Co. A 5.4%, 15 IBU offering, Prost! comes in 355mL cans. The beer is handsome brown, with a thin off-white head.

The modest aroma of this Ontario wheat concoction blends rich malts with apple and banana notes, and a hint of fall spices. The flavour is considerably more robust, with clove, banana bread, and warm malts in the spotlight, and a slightly smoky brown sugar subtext.

A great fall beer from Muddy York, Prost! is a solid take on the classic German style.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Nellie’s Cream Ale

Named in honour of Toronto’s last milk delivery horse, Nellie’s Cream Ale is the September 2020 “Ides of” Series entrant from Henderson Brewery. The ale contains 5.7% and 17 IBUs. It comes in 473mL cans and it’s brewed with flaked oats and a duo of Magnum and Tettnanger hops.

Nellie’s is a slightly hazy orange-gold brew with a thin covering of off-white head. It has a sweet cereal aroma, accented with some biscuity malt. The flavour has a similar construction, with a sweet grain and malt overture and a yeasty, slightly fruity finish. The beer doesn’t have much bitterness to speak of, but it has a lovely smooth texture.

According to Henderson’s website, Nellie’s reward for her daily labour was a bottle of beer and a whole onion. I think that Nellie’s Cream Ale would have satisfied the hard-working equine. I’d have liked a bit more hops depth from the finish and a little less sweetness overall, but otherwise it was an enjoyable little ale.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Frühschoppen

 Frühschoppen is both a German-style pilsner from Toronto’s Great Lakes Brewery and, apparently (according to the copy on the 473mL cans), the “German tradition of meeting for brunch with friends, often on Sunday, to share beer and food ... .”

The 5% pale lager is clear, straw-gold, and amply carbonated. It pours with a loose white head and has an aroma that combines sweet, slightly toasted malt elements with some graininess and a bit of floral hops. The flavour is primarily sweet, with grain and toast notes, initially. Where I’d expect crisp bitterness to close things out, the beer delivers only modest noble hops, while the sweetness persists.

Frühschoppen is a decent beer from an excellent brewery—in a way, it suffers from the expectations created by GLB’s high quality offerings. Too sweet and insufficiently crisp, but otherwise enjoyable beer.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Burst! ... A New England Pale Ale

 An entry from Great Lakes Brewery’s Tank Ten Series, Burst! ... A New England Pale Ale is a session-friendly brew at 4.5%. This Toronto brew comes in 473mL cans. It’s a hazy pale gold ale that pours with a fluffy white head. It’s brewed with wheat and oats.

Burst! has a mild, fruity-floral aroma. The beer has a smooth, light-bodied texture. The flavour is mild, particularly at the front end, with some tropical fruit notes, and a dank hop finish.

All told, Burst! is a pretty agreeable little ale. It’s a bit thin for my tastes, but otherwise, it’s yet another nice beer from one of Ontario’s finest.

Ibushi Godspeed Style Helles Lagerbier

 A clean pale lager from Toronto, Ibushi Godspeed Style Helles Lagerbier is a 4.5% brew that comes in 355mL cans. Created by the team at Godspeed Brewery, Ibushi is a clear and effervescent golden lager with durable white suds.

The beer has a fairly spicy noble hop nose, with lots of graininess and a slight metallic quality. For a low alcohol lager, Ibushi has a pretty robust flavour—dry and grainy with a bit of sweetness and respectable noble hop bitterness, alongside a notable touch of wood smoke. My complaint with this lager is its thinness—the texture is not as crisp or crispy as I’d have liked it to be.

Ibushi has great flavour, but it’s hampered by the wispy texture. A nice enough little lager, but not up to the standard of a brewery responsible for other magnificent lagers.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Dulce Tiramisu Pastry Stout

 

This beer was a mistake. I placed a mail order from the team at Toronto’s Indie Alehouse and one of the slots in the case of 12 bottles I ordered was inexplicably filled by Dulce Tiramisu Pastry Stout—but I’m not complaining. Dulce is a 9.5% ale sold in 500mL bottles—the label suggests that one should “share with a friend”, but I obviously went for the whole shebang myself while marinating a steak.

Dulce is a nearly black ale with a sudsy cream head. It has a sweet and potent aroma built around coffee, and a whiff of cocoa. The flavour is extremely sweet, with a woody quality. The elevated booze is evident, as are notes of cafe con lecce, vanilla, and brown sugar.

This is a definite dessert beer. Sure, it’s a bit gimmicky, but as pastry stouts go, this one has heat and heart. I’d have liked the coffee bitterness to come through more assertively in the finish, and less sweetness would have gone a long way, but I still liked the beer more than I expected.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Deece Petite IPA

 Bloomfield, Ontario is the home of Matron Fine Beer and of Deece Petite IPA. Deece is a 4% session IPA sold in 355mL cans. The beer is hazy and golden, with a loose off-white head.

 

Deece has a mild, fruit forward aroma, with primarily pineapple notes. Given the modest aromatics and low booze bill, the flavour is surprisingly punchy, with tropical fruit, decent yeastiness, and some floral bitterness.

For a low octane “IPA”, Deece is extremely flavourful and well-crafted. It’s a solid exploration of what a session ale can do in terms of flavour and body. Really nice stuff, though a bit more bitterness would have fully sealed the deal.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.